


aquilegia coerulea ochroleuca

by imperiousheiress



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Copious Amounts of Fluff, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Plant Symbolism, Pre-Relationship, talking to plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 05:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20755436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperiousheiress/pseuds/imperiousheiress
Summary: “I don’t know. If only Crowley were here. What wouldhedo?”Oh, but wait. Hedoesknow.Yeah. You- you talk to them.(Or, Aziraphale finds a dying plant in Crowley's flat. He does the only thing he can think to do. What Crowley would do. He talks to it.)





	aquilegia coerulea ochroleuca

**Author's Note:**

  * For [handlebarstiedtothestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handlebarstiedtothestars/gifts).

> Inspired by [this prompt.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/610564647669727234/621110146042691596/image0.png)

“Oh, _ hello_.” Aziraphale leans in close, fingers running gingerly over the serrated leaf-edge of a verdant plant that’s currently stretching viny arms towards the floor-to-ceiling twin windows at the end of the room. “Aren’t you a pretty thing? Oh, yes.”

He doesn’t know what kind of plant it is – he’s never been one for biology – but it’s _ beautiful. _Just like all of Crowley’s plants. The perfect, silky, rosepink petals of the flower preen under Aziraphale’s praise, perking up around a blushing center. 

“Absolutely _ gorgeous_.”

Crowley isn’t currently anywhere to be found. Of course, that has been the case for the last handful of days as well. That’s the reason he’s here in the first place. It’s been nearly a week since Aziraphale last saw him and, even then, he’d been… _ off_. For just a couple of days. And then he’d disappeared entirely.

There had been no great dramatic event precipitating his silence. No prior indication that he was going to drop all lines of communication. Nothing. Nothing that Aziraphale had been able to notice, anyway. And it should have been rather difficult to slip anything by him.

A century, heaven, even a _ decade _ ago, Aziraphale might not have thought anything odd whatsoever about not encountering Crowley, and for a much longer stretch of time, too. _ Years_, in fact. But _ now_. Well. Now, it’s been a month since they averted the end of the world. And nearly the same since they last spent any length of time apart. Now that they’re trying desperately to make up for lost time. For the endless centuries with all of their covert meetings and all of the delicate dancing steps they’ve engaged in and all of the doubts they’ve harbored. 

It’s been heavenly. (Or, well, it would be, if Aziraphale had any actual fond memories of heaven.) And now, it’s stopped. Without warning and, apparently, without reason. 

He had at first thought that, perhaps, Crowley just needed a few moments to himself. Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from worrying. But, well, it’s not like Crowley had been forcibly torn away by any heavenly or hellish forces. He hadn’t even gone missing in the night. He’d walked out the door of the bookshop with a briefly mumbled announcement that he was _ “Going out, angel.” _

Before Aziraphale had even been able to think about asking where to or for how long, he’d already been out the door. It hadn’t been until evening had fallen just around six hours later and Crowley still hadn’t returned that Aziraphale had thought to consider that something might not be quite right. 

And, well, now he’s here. Once he hadn’t been able to stand around any longer, dancing on needles with every step, tripping over every ring of the bell above the door, he’d come here. To Crowley’s flat. The only place he’d been able to think where Crowley might have gone to hide out. Hoping upon hope that he would find him here.

And when he’d failed in finding any trace of him in the flat proper, he’d pushed open the wall-door to the only room in the whole place with any true personality. The plant room. Crowley’s personal slice of Eden. It’s the only part of the flat, in all its cold neatness, that Aziraphale has ever truly enjoyed spending any amount of time in. There’s a _ life _ to it that’s drawn from more than just the vibrancy of the flora. It’s got Crowley’s creative thumbprints over every inch of it, his artistic heartpulse.

The only thing it’s missing is Crowley himself.

Aziraphale sighs, breath a solid thing through his lungs, and stands up straight. He’s come to the end of a very short string. If Crowley’s not here, he could be anywhere in the world. In the galaxy. _ Alpha Centauri’s nice this time of year. _ And Aziraphale could spend an endless amount of his time searching all of it. But, if Crowley doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.

Ah. Well. At least there’s the plants. These living things that bear his mark. That have breathed his same breath. Something, perhaps, to care for in his stead. (It’s not enough. It could never be enough, Aziraphale knows, and his strings _ pull _ with it.) Although, they all seem to be doing quite well enough on their own. Perhaps it should come as no surprise. Crowley has the most well cared for and well- _ behaved _ plants in the city- _ No. _ On the planet.

That’s why it comes as such a surprise when Aziraphale turns away from the windows to continue his round of checking on them all. (After all, it wouldn’t do for them to get any ideas about wilting or leaf spots. They should be just as perfect as always for when Crowley returns. Yes. _ When _ Crowley returns.)

What his eyes light on immediately is a single plant in a simple black pot. It sits on a pedestal all its own. A place of honor. A throne. One that currently houses nothing but a monument to decay.

The stems that were surely once luscious and fresh are now thin and hanging with a scant splattering of shrunken leaves. The whole thing is more bruise-brown than green and whatever blooms once crowned it are cracking dry. A withering, limp collection of off-white paperbrittle petals. It’s a sickly thing, so small and all alone, with an island all to itself. 

The rest of the room drops away from Aziraphale’s vision into static nothingness and he moves forward across the floor, as if drawn in by a gravitational pull beyond his ability to break.

He stops just in front of it without really remembering having moved in the first place. He barely dares breathe lest he disturbs what little of the plant might still be clinging onto life. In this state, a stray breeze could be all it takes to shatter it into dust.

"What's this, then?" His voice is the smallest it's ever been. He takes a step in close - not _ too _close - and lets his hands flutter in the air near withered leaves. Feeling but not touching. "None of the other plants are like this. You poor dear. What's happened to you?"

The plant doesn't even twitch. He's not sure it's capable of doing so. Not, at least, without shaking itself apart.

It is, however, still alive. Still exuding the faintest glow of warm, green pulsing energy. It’s dim, though. Barely there. So shrunken and so small that Aziraphale has to really exert himself in order to pick up on it.

He focuses in, keeping that tiny spark of life on the periphery of his conscience. Holding tightly to it. He sighs.

“I don’t know. If only Crowley were here. What would _ he _ do?”

Oh, but wait. He _ does _ know. 

_ Yeah. You- you _ talk _ to them_, Crowley had said once, throwing hands that had previously been tucked deeply in tight pockets up in front of him in a gesture of- protest? Defense? Possibly something that had contained a little bit of both. Just a moment previously, Aziraphale had walked in after hearing a ruckus from where he’d been semi-comfortably settled at the desk throne in the other room. _ I don’t know, angel. It’s just what people _do. 

(What he’d failed to mention was that talking to plants was a trend that had first prevailed in the seventies and had died with disco. It wasn’t that Crowley _ hadn’t _ gotten the memo, it was just that he’d chosen to ignore it.)

So, well. Aziraphale supposes he’s going to talk to the plant.

“Hello,” he starts, and immediately feels a bit silly for doing so. He huffs a little quiet breath and then tries again. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know what I’m meant to say to you. If Crowley were here, I’m sure he’d be able to find the right words. Tell you to- to _ buck up! _ And all that.”

He chuckles, a half-hearted thing torn from him against his intentions, born from a pervasive sense of melancholy. He’s not really sure what Crowley _ does _ say to the plants, just that he does it quite loudly. He has a hard time imagining that it’s _ “Buck up!” _however.

“But, well, all you’ve got is me, so I suppose it’ll have to do.” Aziraphale crouches a little closer. Squints at browned stems and dry, wrinkled leaves. Petals? Possibly. Hard to tell in this state. “I’m not sure what you’re _ supposed _ to look like, but I am sure whatever it is is absolutely magnificent. You see, Crowley doesn’t really stand for anything other than the best.”

The truth of the statement settles like a stone in the pit of his gut and his next breath comes with more of a tremble than the last. 

“So, if he brought _ you _ here, then, well! You must be the best of the best. The cream of the crop, if you were. Because, you know, you’re a plant?” He imagines Crowley’s eyeroll vividly in his mind with what he imagines to be near-perfect accuracy. “Anyway, the point is that you _ must _ be special, or he wouldn’t have bothered. There’s so much beauty in you, I’m sure of it. You just _ have _ to live. Because-” 

Aziraphale stands up straight and he can feel his hands balling into sailor’s knot fists at his sides.

“_Because_, Crowley’s going to come home and if he sees you like- like _ this_, he’s going to be severely upset. He _ is_. He’s going to walk _ right _ through that door and can you imagine the look on his face?” 

Because Aziraphale can. He _ can_. _ So _ clearly, and he doesn’t look at the door, he won’t, he can’t, because he can’t bear to look and see nothing but empty space. Just like he has every day for the last week. In every centimeter of space he’s searched, in every instant that he’s glanced up from crisp pages or steaming cocoa and been met with emptiness.

He doesn’t know when his voice started to shake. Maybe it’s been doing that the whole time he’s been here. Maybe it started when he first watched the smooth plane of Crowley’s back disappear behind the slowly closing bookshop door.

“So, you see, you really _ do _ have to live. You’ve _ got _ to. Because I know he _ acts _ tough, and- and he’s so devilishly _ clever_, and _ suave_, and _ stylish_, but- Well, really, he’s softer than you’d think. He’s kind. And he _ cares_. So incredibly deeply. About plants, and people, and music, and all the _ important _ things.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t realize the speed with which he’s rambling until he’s brought suddenly silent by the violent hiccup that erupts from his diaphragm and forcibly cuts him off. The sound, the feeling of it, startles him to a stop for a long moment. What was-? Why did-?

_ Drip. _

The clinking crystal pinhead splash of water hitting the hard surface of the floor at his feet echoes like a solitary gunshot in the silence. He remains silently staring, uncomprehending, until he becomes aware in one blinding flash moment of where his hand has found the ridge of his own cheekbone of its own accord and, more importantly, the salty sting of a neat vertical slash of water dividing his cheek. 

_ Oh_, that’s- Huh.

He stares at the bead of water glistening on his fingertip like it’s a foreign thing, something still impossibly fresh and new in this world that he’s seen from end to end across the span of six millennia. And then, detached from the rest of him, his mouth continues to move.

“Please. _ Please_. He needs something to come back to. He needs a reason to come _ home_. And if you die- I don’t- _ I _ need him to come home, and I don’t know what I’ll do if- if-” 

_ If he doesn’t_.

He chokes on the words that he can’t say, can hardly bear to even think.

One hand claps over his mouth, a wall against the strangled sound that he hears almost as if from a distance, and the other holds it firmly in place. He curls in on himself, folding under the weight of the heavy heartbeat pounding against his temples, breath sawing in uneven cuts through his lungs. The ground shakes under his feet.

_ “Angel.” _

It's impossible, there's no way. His imagination has never held a candle to Crowley's but right now it must be running on overdrive. Working against him to create a facsimile of the thing he most wants and fears. But it's not real, it's not, and he won't turn around because then he'll see exactly what he doesn't want to. Just more empty space. An exterior echo of the holes growing in his heart.

He closes his eyes against his every desire for _ hope _ . A fickle, terrible thing that's entwined in his every celestial fiber, that tends to sink its claws in deep, _ deeper,_ just when it's most unwanted. He'll focus instead on the play of phosphenes against void black, the lights that dance their eerie swing across his eyelids, blinding him against any spectral visions of demons.

He's sure it's worked, it _ always _ tends to work, but then no. He hears it again.

"Angel." 

A start-stop breath, closer this time, and his heart seizes between his fragile ribcage. There are footsteps and the barest brush of a warm - _searing -_ touch against his wrist. And no, no this can't be a vision, can it?

Crowley's voice is a knotted mess of a thing when he speaks again, too close, just behind the tips of Aziraphale's burning ears.

"Aziraphale, _ please_. Look at me."

It tilts up at the end. A question more than a command. (A _ plea._)

Aziraphale turns so quickly he feels as though his balance will fail. _ It's impossible, _ he still thinks, but it's true. 

Crowley is _ here. _Close enough to touch. Which Aziraphale does, because he can't help himself - he needs the reassurance. Hands clench near-numb fingers around the lapels of a smoke gray jacket. Crowley's physical corporation is solid under his touch. 

He wants to speak, but whatever words had been at the forefront of his rational brain - _ Where have you been. I missed you. Don't ever leave again. I love you. _\- are replaced instead by a water-laden huff of breath. A release of all of the air from his lungs in one flooding gasp.

Crowley doesn’t seem to mind. One hand raises to encircle Aziraphale’s wrist, a barely-there grip that’s just enough to ground him. His sunglasses are nowhere to be seen and the full sunshine glow of his wide golden eyes is trained directly on Aziraphale.

“What- What are you doing here?” he asks, the words ringing with a startling hollowness behind them. It’s a question, not an accusation, and one full of strangled emotion. “I didn’t think…”

_ “Crowley,” _ Aziraphale gasps, because, at the moment, it seems to be the only word he knows. It’s the only word that really matters. That has _ ever _ mattered. He swallows, and there’s a lead-like heaviness to it. A lump sticks in his throat, one that comes bubbling out a moment later when he finally manages to find new words. “You _ left_. You were gone, and I didn’t know _ where. _ And I wanted- I _ needed_-”

Crowley quiets him with a soft sound, fingers stroking at the sliver of skin between his palm and the end of his sleeve. His grasp tightens in the lightest squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice strained. “Angel. I didn’t think-”

“_What,_ exactly, didn’t you think?” Aziraphale asks with a sharp edge that he didn’t intend. A cover to the way his throat seizes around the words. “Because I’ve spent the last week worrying, with no idea where you’d gotten off to, or if you were alright, or- or _ why_.” 

Crowley’s hand works to slowly, gently pry open the vicegrip that’s wrinkling the fabric of his coat. Aziraphale doesn’t realize that he’s trembling until he sees the evidence of it right in front of his eyes. He drops his hands, wrings them together in front of his chest to keep them steady. Steadi_er_. 

Crowley’s gaze falls, and the backwards step he takes opens a gulf between them.

“Well,” he huffs, arms raising to his sides in a weak approximation of a normally grand gesture. His voice is tinted with bitterness, but it’s not directed towards Aziraphale. “I’m here now. I’m sorry, I really am. Listen, I didn’t mean to- I just _ couldn’t _ say anything, and I- Next time, I won’t-”

_ “Next time,” _ Aziraphale repeats, and the constant twining movement of his hands ceases. The echo of those two short words, all of the implications behind them, bounces around, arhythmic, through his skull, and he can feel the tension of the frown pulling hard at his lips. “Crowley, I don’t want there to be a _ next time_. Don’t you _ get _ that? This has been, uncontested, the _ worst _ week I’ve had to live through. And we stopped the _ bloody _ apocalypse. You were gone, and I waited and waited, and when that didn’t work, I went looking. I came here and there was nothing but this _ bloody, stupid _ plant that’s dying and won’t _ listen _ to me-”

“What plant?”

_ “What?” _ Aziraphale snaps, hardly thinking that bit of information is pertinent to the matter at hand. But Crowley’s eyes have blown impossibly wider, with glass shine and hardness, and he goes rigid, fully attentive once more. 

Unsure of what he can say, what he _ should _ say, he steps aside in silence, opening up a clear view of said plant and its shrinking, witherbrown leaves to the rest of the room. It’s still small and sad, like all the life has been drained forcibly from it. So much so that it would be easy to miss entirely. It would come as no surprise if it were to simply shrink into a corner of the room and disappear.

Crowley, however, stares like it’s the only thing in the room.

_ “Oh,” _ he breathes, pitched an octave or so too high. It’s barely more than a hiss of air past his lips, but it might as well be a hurricane in the face of the surrounding silence.

What Aziraphale doesn't expect is the bitter crackle of mirthless laughter that follows. He startles, unable to respond in the long moment that it takes for Crowley to step past him, right to the edge of the pedestal that holds the pot filled with soil and dropped leaves. He reaches for it, runs black-tipped fingers against black satin porcelain. Lets his touch linger. And then, with a rattled breath, his eyes slip closed and he shakes his head. The corners of his mouth twitch in a grimace, and he drags both hands down the length of his face.

When next he blinks up at Aziraphale, he looks tired. In a way he hadn’t before. In a way he seldom ever has.

“Do you know where I got this plant, angel?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrows and his eyes flicker to Crowley’s elbow. To the pathetic, dust-beige thing still barely holding its shape atop its grecian marble throne.

He doesn’t need to answer; it’s written across his face. But, still-

“No. I don’t think I know where you picked up _ any _ of your plants. Why-?”

“Why? Because _ you _ gave it to me.”

Aziraphale stiffens, an unpleasant tingle swooping through the confines of his stomach. If possible, his frown carves a deeper gouge across his face. He stares, and continues to stare. At the same time, his mind goes through a century’s worth of memories and beyond. Trying to compare the image before him to one of them. Trying to find _ any _ instance that matches up with Crowley’s words.

“When have I-? Thinking back, I really _ should _ have gifted you with a plant of some sort, at least once.” 

Now his hands fold together in front of him and he twists at the gold band around his finger. He _ should _ have done, shouldn’t he? As a housewarming present. An offering brought with him the first time he’d visited the flat. A _ we just averted the apocalypse and saved the world _ commemoration. But the thought has never crossed his mind, he realizes with a fresh wave of hard-wrung discomfort.

“I _ should _ have. But I’m afraid I can’t actually recall a time when- when I _ did_.”

Crowley’s shoulders jolt along with a snorted chuckle. He tilts his head slightly away, angling it back towards the plant at his side.

“I suppose you wouldn’t,” he muses. “Because you didn’t really, well, _ give it to me,_ give it to me, as such.” He stops with a sigh. “What I’m trying to say is. Well. Do you remember the year we first went to the Chelsea Flower Show? Think it was the forties or something.”

“It was 1953,” Aziraphale says. “The year of Elizabeth’s coronation. She was there for it. I remember.” 

It’s not a lie. He _ does _ remember. He remembers smells and colors, a sense of vibrant life in the air. The feeling of _ love _ pulsing from every person, across every leaf and vine. He remembers scrumptious raspberry-rose scones iced a delicate pink and sprinkled with petals. He remembers the stark white shine of waxy gardenia petals on the stand just behind where Crowley had sat directly across from him. A halo that had served only to highlight the deep crimson shimmer of Crowley’s shoulder-length hair. He remembers the starting embers of something being stoked in the depths of his chest, something he had wanted desperately, then, not to acknowledge.

“But-”

“There was one stand. _ Full _ of flowers. I mean, they all were, but _ this one_\- This one you stopped at. For so long that I think even the florist started to get annoyed.” Crowley’s lips twitch, the slant of his eyebrows melting soft with fondness. “It was before you even knew that I was keeping plants, I think. Just a coincidence that you even asked me along at all, really. But there was a single flower there. Just the one bloom. Small. Kind of pathetic, really. _I _would never have even noticed it. But _ you…” _

He shakes his head and the full luster of gold-leaf eyes comes crashing back down against Aziraphale. A new, insistent fire fuels the previously sparking light of them, one that Aziraphale can’t quite grasp.

“You _ saw _ it. You picked it out between all the rest. You looked at it and you saw what it _ could _ be.” Crowley’s eyes are still fixed, and how his shoulders are tensing as his hands start to finish and his words come faster, faster, _ faster_. “So I took it home. I don’t know if you even saw me buy it; you might have been onto something else already. But I _ did _ and I’ve had it ever since. Kept it alive. Except for in the sixties, well specifically in _ sixty-seven,_ when I came home after- after-” Crowley chokes out a strangled sound and swallows it back down again. 

_ After the holy water_.

He doesn’t have to elaborate. Aziraphale can still see the pulsating of bright neon lights through the clear glass windows of the Bentley. The silent siren-red that had played across Crowley’s cheekbones, reflected in the rims of perfect circle sunglasses and against the sharp bones of his hands and fingers. Can still feel the flutter of his own heartbeat ringing somewhere in his ears. Sometimes, he doesn’t even have to think about it to see it, feel it. _ Hear it_. 

_ Anywhere you want to go. _

“It had always been fine before that. _ Perfect,_ even. That was the first time it _ ever _ started to wither.” Now Crowley smiles a thin, fractured smile. Aziraphale’s breath snags when he sees the slipstream of a single tear that Crowley doesn’t let leave the corner of his eye. He sniffs and snatches it away on the back of his hand. “Thought it would be the last time. But then, a week ago.” He swallows. “That’s when I _ knew_. I was thinking about it, and how much I wanted- and I’d actually _ planned _ to tell you-”

The whisper-sharp breath that he sucks in a second later when his eyes blow wide and open with a jolt is easily drowned out by Aziraphale’s own.

The silence that rings between them is a deafening harmony. Aziraphale is the first one to break it. His wavering voice shatters it with a _ ping. _ The crystal-tinkling of a delicate-stemmed wine glass scattering across a marble floor.

“Tell me? Tell me _ what?” _The words emerge only after having been run through the sifter of his tight throat. With a flour-dust fineness that could be blown from the air in a puffing, powdery explosion, with no more than a stray breath. His eyes flit across the rawness of Crowley’s countenance. _ “Crowley.” _

Crowley glances down at his shining black boot toetips and when he looks up again, Aziraphale can’t help but feel somewhat like the sharp rocks at the bottom of a hard dropping cliff. He takes a deep breath.

“Well, suppose it doesn’t matter any more, does it? No point in _ not _ saying it.” Crowley’s eye contact breaks from him only for a second, when he rubs slender fingers across his cheekbones before shoving his hands back into his pockets. “I’m _ in love with you_, angel.” 

Aziraphale blinks. _ Oh. _

“There, I’ve said it. Have been since the middle ages. If not, well, _ forever_. You probably guessed it already, though, by the look of things.” Crowley tosses his hands up and does a little spin in place, shuffling his feet so he lands face to face with Aziraphale again. “So, _ now _ you know. Alright, then, I’ll just be off. Get out of your hair for a bit. Maybe get to make that trip to Alpha Centauri. Leave you some space. ‘Nother few centuries pass, maybe we’ll run into each other again. After you’ve had some time to-”

Before he can think about it, before he even realizes what his body is doing, both of Aziraphale’s hands are fisting themselves tight back into the lapels of Crowley’s jacket, white-knuckled grip like a lifeline. A lightning rod. He holds tight and with so much initial force from inertia that Crowley, unsuspecting, is pushed back a step. He steadies himself against Aziraphale’s assault, full-blown and fast-blinking eyes more gold than not.

“Aziraphale. What-”

“Don’t be an _ idiot__,_ Crowley.” His voice hiccups in the middle, strangled from his pulsing lungs with force. But he doesn’t care, he doesn’t, he _ can’t_.

He yanks Crowley close, close enough to feel his warmth, to smell his distinct, earthy fresh scent of sooty petrichor and heady-sharp cinnamon. And then he kisses him.

It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. (He hasn’t made it much of a habit, even across six thousand years, to go around kissing people. Not often. And, even if he had, he thinks this would still be different.) A flutter of sparkling light whirls against the backs of his closed eyelids in a parade of all shapes and colors. 

It’s only a moment later that he feels the way Crowley has gone stiff against him - a long, sinewy mass of taut muscle. The second he recognizes Crowley’s lack of response, he jerks away. His stomach lurches in a way that curls his toes.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, knees feeling non-existent beneath him. “Crowley. I’m so sorry, you said you loved me, and I thought-”

“I _ do,_” Crowley rasps. Like a first breath after drowning. “I do, Aziraphale, _ I do_. Don’t apologize, _ don’t_.”

And then, before Aziraphale can conjure the beginnings of a rational thought, before he even has a chance to relax, Crowley is surging forward. He pushes back even harder than Aziraphale had, when he brings their mouths together, again, in a violent collision. He pushes hard enough that Aziraphale doesn’t get his feet, doesn’t find the ground beneath him, until the silk leaves of some kind of tall fern are tickling at the back of his neck. He doesn’t brush them away. He doesn’t _need_ to, because Crowley does it for him. Replaces the cool chlorophyll of forest green leaves with the hot flesh of his searing palm.

He cradles Aziraphale like a precious thing, like the brittle petals of an unidentifiable flower. One that’s _ more _ than just a flower. So much more. Fingertips brush the down of hair at the base of his skull. A tight grip closes around the back of his sweater. The rise and fall of a sturdy chest pulses against his own. Crowley is _ everywhere_. Around him and beside him and his tongue dances greedily, lovingly, against the roof of his mouth. Lapping up the breath from his lungs before it can reach out to the world. He is earth and cinnamon and warmth and _ love_.

Aziraphale happily lets himself be suffocated.

When they separate – when _ Crowley _ separates from him (Because he is here; Aziraphale has him back, and he _has _ him, and he’s not eager to let that go. Not ever again.) his lungs take in a useless breath. What is air in comparison to the taste of Crowley’s silver tongue? The all-encompassing hurricane of him? 

Crowley doesn’t let him go. Not entirely. Twin hands encircle his waist – holding him gentle and steady, keeping him close – and Crowley’s face is tilted close enough for the licks of feather-soft bangs to brush like spidersilk across the span of his forehead. He’s grateful for it. If Crowley were to pull away from his touch right now, he’s not sure he wouldn’t just crumple into dust at his feet. 

There is an entire swirling galaxy expanding behind the starlight of Crowley’s eyes and Aziraphale holds them like they contain the answers to all of existence and beyond. (Because they do, they _ do_. Everything that matters right now – the only thing that will ever matter again – is confined to the depths of Crowley’s eyes.)

Crowley is smiling – a toothy grin that spreads from ear to ear, that sparks a new smattering of joy sparkling in his galaxy eyes. He huffs out a sniffling breath that melts quickly over itself into a bark of giddy laughter, purposeless except as an outlet to whatever bubbles up within him at this very moment.

Aziraphale’s joy spills over a second later. He is infected with Crowley’s grin, with his giggling. His hands make their own way up around the back of Crowley’s neck to stroke tip-toeing fingers through his hair.

“I love you, too,” he says. 

Those little words that he’d so often doubted ever being able to say. They roll through him now like a gentle breeze, light and laden with a snowfall of cottonwood fluff. Thin as sunlight stealing through a fractured glass mural but _ iridescent _ all the same.

“In case it wasn’t apparent. I love you too. Crowley, I _do._ _I love you_.” 

Still smiling, Crowley kisses him again. And _ again_.

His smile turns small and soft-lipped and he huffs a quiet sigh, the ghost of his breath a pleasantly icy coolant against the rose-colored heat curling over Aziraphale’s cheekbones. He shakes his head.

“I was _so_ _sure_. That you didn’t- That you could never-”

Aziraphale hushes him with a finger pressed against his lips. He can feel the tense clench of his jaw through skin. 

“I do. I have. How _ couldn’t _ I?” he murmurs, hand trailing to cup around Crowley’s cheek as soon as he’s fairly positive he won’t be met with further protest. “Although I will admit that I had similar fears, for quite some time. And I’m sorry. Truly. I’ve been a coward. I made you wait for me when-”

_ “Hush,” _ Crowley huffs, and there’s a smile on his face. He covers Aziraphale’s hand with his own and drags it to his lips, pressing butterfly kisses against the flat of his palm. “Don’t. You don’t have to say anything, angel. It’s ok. _ This _ is all that matters. Right now.”

Aziraphale nods. Crowley shifts closer, arm snaking unimpeded around Aziraphale’s back, and that’s when he sees it. The gasp that escapes his mouth is small but clear, and Crowley stops hard in place. He barely notices.

“Crowley, _ look_.” 

He receives nothing but a frown for just a second, and then he is twisting around, still half-entwined with Aziraphale, and he blinks in long gaps, a slow hiss of breath escaping his lungs like a deflating balloon.

_ “Oh.” _

Where once, just a scant number of minutes ago, there was the starving, shriveled skeleton frame of something natural wilting away in its own personal hell on the pedestal near the middle of the room, now there is a _ real _ plant. A verdant green stem topped with a smattering of full flowers. The fresh, new blooms, are made of sugary, pure ivory silk. Five teardrop petals meld together, centered by a handful of stamens – a smattering of translucent filaments that emerge in a chaotically beautiful wave, topped by sun yellow anthers. Placed symmetrically behind the center flower is what almost looks like a second, separate flower altogether. It’s the same brilliant pearlescent shade of glimmering white as the rest. (A color that makes him think, unbidden, of the walls of heaven. Except nothing in that cold, sterile place could ever match the beauty here, in front of him.) The second set of petals is longer and the tips are sharper. It’s a perfect imitation. A flower that glows as a bright center to a perfect star.

“It’s _ beautiful,_” Aziraphale says, the words drawn out in a breath from the place deep inside him that blooms all its own upon seeing them.

He remembers, now. He remembers a sea of star-like flowers. The speckles of them dotting a breathing sky of flora. That very same glow reflected in yellow eyes behind dark glasses - a galaxy all their own. He remembers raspberry-rose scones and a round, white, iron-wrought table with intricately twisting swirls. Crowley across from him, resplendent. A flame against a stark white backdrop.

He remembers the words, clearer and brighter than any celestial harmony, ringing a _ vibrato _ melody through his inner ear. Drumming through the pulse beating in his skull. _ I love you_. Even then.

Here and now, that same song plays. Soft but present. There just beyond the swish of blood through his flushed-warm veins. Crowley’s eyes are on him when he says, “Yeah. It is.”

Aziraphale’s grin only widens as he takes a step closer to the plant. He has to release Crowley in exchange, but it’s alright. He can still feel him right there, just beyond his periphery. Solid and steady and exactly where he should be. Aziraphale never wants him to be farther than that, never again. _ This close always. _ Until the end of time.

He reaches out a hand, bolder now. No longer afraid to touch. And when his fingers meet lustrous, soft leaves, they don’t crumble. The don’t even shake. They lean into his touch, full and proud. Preening under his soft words of praise.

_ “Look _ at you. Lovely thing. I knew you would be.”

He knows that Crowley’s eyes are on him. He has always been able to tell when they are. But he doesn’t think much of it until Crowley speaks up, and then the petals of the newly revived flower are fluttering in the breeze he conjures when he whirls around.

“What was that?” he asks, mind still a fuzzy echo of the words he thought Crowley said. An impossible order of words. 

“I said, _ move in with me,_” Crowley repeats, and this time, it’s unmistakable. Aziraphale is looking right at him, and his mouth is forming all the correct shapes in time with his voice. “Not here. _ No. _ Somewhere else. Somewhere better. Somewhere that’s _ ours_.” 

It’s the kind of thing that Crowley might say as a joke. It’s exactly in his wheelhouse of humor. But, no. Not this time. Not _ this_. His naked eyes are bright and sincere. And when Aziraphale takes a second too long to respond, his arms curl around himself and he shrinks, a shadow falling over his features that wasn’t there a moment ago. Before it can grow too dark, before the storm can spread, Aziraphale closes the distance. Chases the wisps of gray cloud away. 

“Yes. _ Crowley_. Yes. There’s nothing more in the world- in the _ universe- _ that I want. _ Yes_.”

Aziraphale kisses him. Fully and completely. And when he pulls away, Crowley looks at him with his star-flower smile and says, “Yeah. Ok. That’s alright then.”

And then he kisses him again. He doesn’t stop kissing him all the way back to the bedroom.

A short handful of weeks later, Crowley sets the white flowers in the windowsill above the sink, in a place all their own. When he turns around, he is smiling. A small, wondrous thing. A perfect reflection of the same disbelieving, light-as-air feeling that floats through Aziraphale’s chest. He smiles back.

Crowley draws close, sweeps him into his arms, holds him flush against his chest. And he kisses him, pressing him up against the doorway of the cottage. This place that’s only _ theirs_.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr. ](https://imperiousheiress.tumblr.com)


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